As the first highrise in Port Coquitlam’s history, Shaughnessy on Lions Park is the latest invitation to the new-home shopper to experience urban residency in a local suburb.

“It’s an accepted lifestyle development, to have multi-family residences,” says Beau Jarvis, vice-president of development for Onni.

“Cities are planning for densification with transportation, mixed-use planning and more community amenities.”

The permitting process proceeded slowly, but surely, Jarvis reports.

“The site was available and the city indicated a willingness to consider it, but it was controversial at first. People were saying, ‘this isn’t Yaletown.’ There’s always resistance to change.”

“Suburbia” is now filled with highrises, says Jarvis. The attached home is more likely than not to be more affordable than the detached home. And it is more likely than not to be more sustainable, more green. A “town centre” household has less cause to use the private automobile and more opportunity to use public transit, for example.

The organizer of the Shaughnessy sales and marketing campaign, Cam Good of TheKey.com, thinks that the suburban-urban divide is disappearing as downtowns, or town centres, develop in Lower Mainland municipalities outside Vancouver.

“The idea of where is ‘cool’ is shifting,” Good says. “The suburbs have centres with their own restaurants, shops and events.”

The Shaughnessy homes, Good reports, are appealing to a wide range of buyers. About one-third of the homes have been sold, by an equal mix of first-time homebuyers, downsizers and would-be landlords.

“There’s a group of young people who went to high school in this community and they want to stay here, but if they’re going to do that, they want to live in the coolest building,” Good explains. “The investors believe this is going to be the rental hot spot of PoCo. The only other competition is $800 basement suites.”

He concedes that while renters may be willing to pay more for concrete construction and the views at the Shaughnessy, that market is so far untested. Still, Good believes rental rates would be in the area of $1.50 per square foot.

While the Shaughnessy is a first for Port Coquitlam, Onni’s Oasis project is entering a crowded market in Coquitlam. A myriad of projects are in the process of breaking ground in the immediate area around the Coquitlam Centre shopping mall. The Grand Central project (Buying the fundamental in Coquitlam, May 8 Westcoast Homes) is less than two blocks away, for example.

Rather than being concerned about the competition, Beau Jarvis believes the intensity of development is a positive sign, showing the City of Coquitlam’s commitment to densification in that neighbourhood.

“People will choose us because of our reputation, the quality of our finishings, the height of the building, and the amazing amenities we’re putting into Oasis,” Jarvis says with an almost-shrug.

At 37 storeys, Oasis also will be a bold vertical statement in the commercial hub of the city, being the tallest highrise in Coquitlam. The fourth floor common area includes a huge outdoor swimming pool and hot tub, a play area for children, and for golf enthusiasts, a putting green.

Radanka Trubka, one of two in-house interior designers for Onni, used the same design schemes for both Oasis and the Shaughnessy. Buying in that type of volume, she explains, allows for significant savings.

“We retained full-sized appliances because many of the buyers are coming from a single family home, and that’s what they’re used to,” she says. “We managed to get gas ranges and convection ovens, so there’s lots of value there.”

Trubka says it was important to stay away from flashy or trendy aspects, like glass or mosaic accent tiles. In the kitchen, visual interest is added instead by stacking small rectangular tiles in a dense grouping; in the bathroom, large format rectangular tiles are placed on the vertical plane rather than the more common horizontal. Both add some style without any impact to the bottom line.

Overall, the goal was to stay within the market trend toward a contemporary and clean feel without being too outré. The kitchen reflects what many consumers now demand in highrise living, with industrial, restaurant-style sinks, under cabinet lighting, and soft close drawers.

Since they’re being marketed out of the same sales centre, Oasis and the Shaughnessy could even be considered competition for each other, but Cam Good doesn’t see it that way.

“Coquitlam is more of a proven entity for this style of living,” he says. “If you have a little more of an appetite for risk, you’re heading to Port Coquitlam.”

Much of the densification in both cities has been predicated on the arrival of the Evergreen Line, a transit project that has been the subject of funding wrangles between different levels of government and a seemingly interminable series of delays. It is now scheduled to begin construction in early 2011, but there are still concerns in the Tri-Cities about when the project will finally be completed.

Jarvis is philosophical about one of the fundamental marketing aspects for both developments. (Both Oasis and the Shaughnessy will be less than five minutes away from Evergreen stations.) “There is lots of planning and lots of moving pieces with development. We have to rely on the government to build transportation, but there are no guarantees. There’s always a risk if infrastructure doesn’t develop.”

Good also points out that if the SkyTrain stations were already in place, each buyer in the two developments could easily tack on an additional $50,000 to the purchase price for each unit. Having a little patience and tolerance for risk will ultimately pay off, he believes.

Until then, Onni thinks buyers will enjoy living in the soaring towers of Oasis and the Shaughnessy, high above everyone else.

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